#britishflowers grown in Surrey

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Starting to grow a dream

To pick up from my ‘How it all began’ post…

Twelve months ago, having been an avid follower of #britishflowers hour on Twitter (every Monday evening between 8 and 9pm if you’re interested) I followed what might appear to be some rather mystical and arcane advice but I thought it was good and well worth a go. It was that if you have a wish that you want to come true you should write it down and put it somewhere you look often. Inspired by the people regularly taking part in #britishflowers hour, I had at that time started thinking how wonderful it must be to be a flower farmer, and how much I wished that one day I too might join them. So I put my wish into writing; using a postcard of a painting that I”d bought because it depicted my dream most effectively*, and stored it carefully in the drawer of my bedside cabinet – which is opened on a daily basis, containing as it does lip salve, hand cream; the usual collection of lotions and potions.

Now I don’t know what might have happened had I just sat back and waited for my wish to come true – but I’m pretty certain I would probably still be waiting. The magic of writing it down and seeing it on a daily basis was that it acted as a spur to do something. To take the step of getting beyond wishing I could be something to being it. To achieve my flower farmer dreams I needed some land. The wish I wrote down was that I would find some land to rent that I could use for my flower farm.

I made myself a list of places locally where it appeared they had more land than they were using, and so might be prepared to rent me a bit. I wrote letters and emails and where necessary followed up with phone calls. I received some very kind but regretful refusals, so I wrote some more letters – again with no success, but once again received lots of good wishes for my venture. From time to time I got a bit despondent – so I’d pull the postcard out of the drawer and give the picture a rub for luck and try another avenue. And then a neighbour mentioned a local farmer who is very forward looking, and who, if not able to help me himself might be able to put me in touch with someone who would.

Well the rest, as they say, is history. The farmer said yes he was interested – and asked me to contact him again later in the year. As you can imagine I jumped up and down a bit at that point! The months of waiting until it was time to speak with him again seemed to pass very slowly. But he has come through, and whilst he doesn’t yet know if the plot he is renting to me this year will be a permanent location, I do believe that if I can show him that I mean business, then something more long term will come from it. And so in a few weeks’ time I hope to be able to bring you the first photos of my flower field – I’m just waiting on the farmer to put a fence around it to keep the sheep (my nearest neighbours) out.

I’m having to keep my plans quite restricted this year because I cannot yet take the step of leaving my day job to become a full time flower farmer. But I have arranged to just work four days a week leaving me one day (and evenings and weekends of course) to give to my plans. I’ve found some local florists who like the idea of buying locally grown ‘slow’ flowers – and so I have some outlets to sell to. Because I won’t be getting on to the field until later this month my main flower crops are likely to be mid/late Summer and Autumn ones – but it is a start and I am so delighted with it.

I’ll continue to tell my story here – so do drop by to see how I’m getting on. And if you have a wish…well you know what to do now don’t you?

*This is the picture on the postcard, I’m sure you can see why I chose it.